Recently, broadcasting programs (including video, audio, data or their combinations thereof) can be viewed (or watched in other word) or played regardless of the place where he/she views or plays them through computers (i.e., PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablet PC, etc.) and mobile terminals (i.e., smart phones, pads, dedicated terminals, etc.) as well as traditional televisions (TVs). In addition, broadcasting services can be provided through On-Demand method by virtue of Internet and IP network infrastructure advancements and the streaming technology development.
Hereinafter, for the convenience of descriptions, the meanings of television in the present invention can be understood as those including every possible device to view (or watch) the broadcast programs and all software applications capable of viewing (or watching) broadcast programs.
In the conventional case of viewing broadcast programs, broadcast programs for the parts that have already been broadcasted (i.e., programs having been broadcasted in the past time zone) could become to be viewed at any time by playing the recorded broadcast programs using the televisions embedding DVR (Digital Video Recorder) features. That is, as described above, in the case that a user wants to play the broadcast programs that have already been recorded, a user can change the viewing (or playing) point to the past time zone or select a desired part of the recorded broadcast program and then view the selected part again at the desired speed.
However, it is not being supported to view the part of the broadcast program (i.e., future time zone of the broadcast program) that has not yet been broadcasted. In other words, even though the broadcast program that has been broadcasted in the past time zone can be viewed by selecting the point that was broadcasted in the past as a viewing point, the parts of the program after the current broadcasting point (i.e., future time zone) could not be viewed. That is, the conventional method could not select the viewing point in the future time zone of the broadcast program, thereby the future time zone of the broadcast program could not be viewed. Due to the above reasons, it was uncomfortable for a user to view a broadcast program.
Meanwhile, Korean patent application KR2009-0094255, as a conventional technology, relates to a method of rendering a user interface for a media status, a display apparatus where the user interface is rendered, and computer readable recording media, it just displays the current playing and viewing positions of a media contents, and provides the information related to handle and process the media contents, but there is no suggestion related to the provision and process of the information for viewing the future point of a media contents.
Recently, that is, the concept that the viewing of broadcast program should always be viewed at same time as the program is broadcasted has been being gone, and it is recognized as the broadcast program that a user wants to view can be selectively viewed at any time. Therefore, while a user wants to selectively view the broadcast program that the user wants to view regardless of the broadcasting point, the conventional broadcast program interface rendering apparatus and method did not provide the means for which a user can move the broadcasting point to the future time zone(or region, period etc.) of the current broadcasting time.
Therefore, there need a user interface rendering process enabling a user to change the viewing point to the future time zone while the user is in the middle of viewing a broadcast program, as well as considering various issues (i.e., various items including the user's viewing preferences, service policy enforcement of broadcasting service companies, and technical constraints, etc.,) accompanied in the case of changing the viewing point to the future time zone.